Hoping The Next Generation Remembers the Values of Their Youth

Well, another week has passed by, and it is obvious that the sun is setting faster, and the light in the mornings is coming a little earlier. Yes, September is coming a little closer, and the school year has finally arrived. All of which has caused me to reflect on my past and how our time here is slipping away.

Somebody reminded me the other evening that we are entering our “twilight years,” so I guess it's okay to reminisce a bit. As kids, our summers were a little different than those of the young people down here. In New Hampshire, we began the new school year the Wednesday after Labor Day, and school would let out for the summer at the close of the second week in June.

The vacation breaks were very similar to those here in Florida, and both would look at similar 180-day school years. During my teaching experience, I could never understand why we had to stick to the 180-day or so schedule. The kids would be bouncing off the walls towards the end of the school year. That last week would always be the worst, for grades were always turned in, and we were always just marching in place that last week. I never could understand why we had to adhere to that strict 180-day schedule.

Our time off during the summer months would begin at the end of the second week of June, and by that time were wound as tight as a spring, both students, faculty and administrators. Not much different than down here, and ready for those ten or eleven weeks of summer break. The only ones that didn’t get much time off were our parents, whose days and responsibilities wouldn’t change much.

I would start working at the old Giant Store (a local department store) during my sophomore year in high school and I think my sister Kathy would work at Alans Clam Bar (a local drive-in restaurant) starting her junior year. 

Prior to the years we started working, we’d get to ride our bikes over to Rolfe Park, where we’d take swimming lessons, play sports and enjoy life, as many of our adolescent counterparts did. My mom would pack us a lunch which consisted of either a PB&J sandwich with a couple of potato chips or a bologna, cheese and mustard sandwich and we’d drink out of the water fountain at the park. We’d be there from 8:30 AM until 5:00 PM every day. 

We’d collect a can or bottle or two and cash them in at the local store and rush down to Dianah’s Candy Store and spend every cent of it on candy fireballs or licorice to satisfy our sweet tooth urges. The idea behind cashing in the cans and bottles was to reduce litter, and I hope it did but sometimes I wonder.

While at the park, we’d mostly play pick-up baseball or basketball. On occasion, the Parks and Rec Department would transport us to another city park for some games against other competitive teams from another area of the city; sometimes we’d win, and other times we’d lose, but the ride on the bus and the opportunity to play against another team was always a thrill.

The big event of the summer came as each park would get the opportunity to go on a bus ride to Hampton Beach for the day. While at the state park at the beach, the staff would cook hot dogs for us kids while lemonade was served to wash down those delicious dogs. The park would pick up the cost of the transportation, and we paid the large sum of $3 for the hot dog, chips and lemonade.

On some days when we grew bored with the everyday activity at the city park, we would ride up to the old Contoocook River Park, which had a special swimming hole that a group of us enjoyed frequenting as we got a little older and more adventurous. The older boys would chase us away, though, until we became the older boys and assumed our rightful place in the pecking order.

On occasion, we would even ride our bikes further up the river to jump off the old Horse Hill Bridge. It became a “rite of passage” to take the fifteen-foot plunge off that bridge into the dark waters below. I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t find any need to do it but once, and that still makes me shake a little to this day when I think about it.

I am saddened as I write this because many of those friends have passed now, but I am truly thankful to this day for their friendships and the many times we spent together. To the day that Jim Lowell went over his handlebars on his bike as his front tire wedged between the railroad tracks in West Concord. The great times we had on toboggan races down the big hill behind Rolfe Park in the winter. To the memory I still have of running the rapids in the truck tubes behind the Split Division of the Tannery on the Contoocook River with my friends.

As I travel back to those places from the past, I can’t help but reflect on the impact they’ve had on my life and the impressions they have left on me. I truly hope these young people of today don’t hesitate to make those “leaps of faith” themselves on occasion so they, too, will have such great memories and definitive moments in their lives. 

We need to impress upon them that they should never lose sight of the value of the human connection with one another. At the same time, impress upon them the importance of the bonds of friendship and the value of creating real adventures beyond that of electronics, which seem to have become such an important focus within our lives today. To spend real time with their families and those they hold closest to them, regardless of the cost of making that happen.